Slava Brodsky: Funny Children's Stories

In Catch Up, we just throw the coin by hand. I have an advantage in this game. My fingers are pretty long. So it is easy for me to cover my coin and someone else’s with my fingers. This means that I “ate” the other coin. And the owner of the other coin pays me one kopeck.*

All yards have different rules for Catch Up. Our rules are the strictest. When you throw the coin, you cannot bend over. And you need to throw the coin while your hand is no lower than your chest.

And although I often win at this game, I cannot say that I like to play it. Because you need to find a large clean space in order to play this game. And we certainly do not have much of that. And I do not really feel like playing in the dirt. Especially because some of us like to throw the coin right where there is a lot of dirt. And I do not think it is much of a game then.

For Flip Over, you do not need a lot of dry ground. But here a lot depends on the coin itself.

In Flip Over, the most important thing is who will be the first to break the stack. Everyone throws the coin from some distance to the line. The closer your coin lands to the line, the better. But the coin must go over the line, otherwise it is going to be considered a short fall. The one who throws the best is the first to start the game. He will be the first to break up the pile of coins stacked on the ground.

A good, heavy coin flies nicely, and when it falls, it does not roll anywhere. It is also easier to break up the pile with it. When you strike with a regular five-kopeck coin, it is difficult to flip over another coin. A coin can most likely be flipped over by a heavier coin. As soon as a coin is flipped, it is collected by the one who flipped it over.

Once I saw someone playing with a medal. And I realized that this was it! A medal was what I needed.

And I asked my dad to give me his medal. But when my dad found out what I needed his medal for, he said, “Are you out of your mind? If anyone sees you playing with my medal...”

And I immediately understood that what I said was stupid. Of course, Dad was absolutely right. If anyone saw me playing with the medal, Dad and I would be sent to prison. Mom would probably be sent to prison too. And I decided to tell the guy who played with a medal not to do that anymore. But after that, I never saw that guy again.

So, I have never had a chance to have a good coin. That is why I do not like to play Flip Over. However, I do like to play Coin Wall and Treasury. For these games, you only need a really small patch of dry ground near the wall of a building. And a regular silver half-ruble is the best type of coin for these games.

In Coin Wall and Treasury, everything depends only on you. You really have to know what to do with your silver half-ruble. Otherwise, nothing good can come out of it. Before you make your shot, you need to tap over the entire wall and find the spot where the sound is high pitched. Because spots where the sound is low pitched are hollow. And then your half-ruble will fall straight down to your feet. But if you find a good spot on the wall, your silver coin will fly far away, in the direction you want.

Coin Wall is similar to Catch Up. The only difference is that you are playing against the wall. The rest of the rules are the same. Having long fingers helps me in this game as well. Because here you also need to cover over your coin and someone else’s with the fingers of your hand. And you have to prove that you have a strong hold on the coin and that it would be impossible to strike it out from under your fingers with another coin.

Treasury is pretty much like Coin Wall. But in Coin Wall, when you “eat” someone, he pays you one kopeck. In Treasury, this kopeck goes into a treasury box. We draw a treasury box on the asphalt with chalk. Not too big and not too small – about the size of my palm. If you land a coin within the treasury box, all the money is yours.

Moms usually do not let their kids gamble. But my mom lets me play.

Once, I heard someone asking my mom why she let me gamble. And my mom replied, “It’s better to let my child gamble than…” She did not finish her sentence, but it was obvious what she wanted to say. Because we have such games that adults are scared to even watch us play.

Today I went out to the yard early and had enough time to play both Coin Wall and Treasury. And even a little bit of Catch Up.

And as we were playing Catch Up, a boy we did not know walked up to us. He lives somewhere not far from us. But I do not know where exactly. I am sure, though, that he does not live on Panteleyevka. Because the boys that come here from Panteleyevka scare even our guys. But when I looked at this boy, I immediately realized that he was not someone to be afraid of. His parents must have come to visit somebody who lived in our yard. And then they let him go out and play for a short while. He was looking at what we were doing and kept talking to us all the time.

First, he said that he also could play Catch Up and that he had a very good coin. His coin was so big that it did not just “eat” other coins, it “ate” them with a bang. Then my friend Gleb Paramonov asked him to play with us.

And I knew why Gleb asked him to play with us. Because Gleb is awesome at throwing against a big coin from a distance. And if the one who has the big coin throws it and misses, then Gleb easily catches him with a bang: so that his coin hits the big coin. And for this, the loser pays double.

That was why Gleb suggested that the boy play with us. But the boy refused to play. He stood there and just looked at us playing. And the whole time he kept talking.

It was very strange and unusual to hear the boy talk all the time. In our yard, nobody likes it when someone talks a lot. No one talks a lot in our yard.

That was why it seemed very strange and unusual to me that this boy kept saying things all the time. And I could feel that everyone, absolutely everyone, was set against him.

Gleb again asked this boy to play Catch Up with us. But the boy said that, first, he did not have his coin on him and, second, he liked to play other games.

Then Gleb asked him what other games he liked to play. And the boy said that he was very good at knives. Well, then I suggested that we all play knives.

I am pretty good at playing knives. “Grandma,” “Grandpa,” “First Finger,” “Second Finger” – that I learned quickly. So now I do not lose in this game. I mean, I am never the last one, the loser.

I lost only once. It was a long time ago. I was lucky that back then none of the older boys played with us. And since there were no older boys, the match was not pounded in too deeply. And to get it out of the sand with my teeth was not that difficult. But when older boys are involved, everything becomes much harder.

Usually we play knives in the kids’ sandbox. But the sand, if it was even there, had been mixed in with soil and dirt long time ago. So we use this mix of soil and dirt to make a pile that we throw our knives into.

When the game is over, whoever finished first pounds a match into the pile with three hits. Usually, the first hit is enough to fully pound the match into the pile. After the second hit, it sinks deep into the middle of the pile. The third hit is made not on the match itself but right onto the pile, from the side. Which makes it very difficult to tell where the match actually is. The loser has to get the match out with his teeth. He is allowed to help himself only with his chin. And to look at someone who is trying to get the match out with his teeth is, at times, just pitiful.

When I proposed for everyone to go and play knives and looked at the boy inquiringly, Gleb waved his hand and said, “This one can’t do anything.” And thus the boy had no other choice but to follow us to the sandbox.